Were in the (study) trenches, but we don’t mind,
in the trenches, you aren’t really aware of time,
I’ve talked with a lot of my classmates,
and the citadel lights are burning late.

Ever startle awake because a spider’s on your face - but it’s only your hair?

Sunny’s been infected with the writing sickness.
She keeps saying “listen to this.”

Orthography might just be the death of me - seriously.

I dreamed Peter (my BF) was leaving.
I saw him behind the wheel of a car,
waving from the deck of a ship,
and blurred in the window of a bullet train.
It was like a wheel of misfortune.

slang..
updogged = when you chip in to keep a conversation trend going
fit = gorgeous
buje = unexplainable glamor
football minute = a minute, that with time-outs, lasts a half an hour.
crute = cute but cringy
women's-rights = a really funny joke

In the subscribed course of science - and eventually medicine - night hours seem multiplied by the rough enforcement of study, but this tale is not about that, fair reader.

It’s about a reception, last Friday night. It hardly matters what it was for, there are so many. This one was first class - so please, have some decorum ladies. Our cast is Lisa, Leong, Sunny and I (4 roommates). We stay clumped together, on nights out, like conjoined quadruplets because there’s safety in numbers.

There were about sixty people there, mostly students. Lisa and I had gotten invitations, Leong and Sunny are our plus-ones. After making the rounds, doing our meeting and greeting due diligence, we’d captured one corner of a long table and began enjoying some actual drink-drinks. We’re usually studying, trying to prove ourselves like rats in a maze, so we go a little crazy when they let us out and about.

Is it me, or are free drinks just better than other flavors? There was a long line of ‘Tom Collins-ses,’ on the bar which one could freely walk up and take. I think they’re made with lemon juice, sprite, gin and the tears of fallen angels.

These were quite good, each featuring both a lemon slice AND a cherry. Like I said, first class. We were taking turns getting them, two of us going up, each returning with 2 drinks. That way we didn’t look like 4 hookers hanging on the bar like horses at a trough (decorum).

Socials, receptions, fundraisers - whatever - can be social minefields. Even in how you greet people. Do you shake hands? I’d heard that shakes were out due to COVID, but if so, they’re back now. Some people were even huggers - your professor initiates a hug and you just want to avoid head-butting him. Monday morning though, you better hand in that paper, girlie.

At one point (I was mothering my third Collins), Sunny said, “Meeting people is awkward,”
“Being out in the world is awkward,” I updogged.
“Not for Lisa,” Leong said, and everyone sniggered.
“Why not ME?” Lisa said, looking up from her phone.
“Because you’re fit,” Sunny said, “everywhere you go, it’s like ‘Goodfellas,’” she mimics various, waving people, “Hi Lisa, or Hey Lisa," and “Yo Lisa!” with the point & nod.
We all chuckled again, but Lisa said, “It’s not true.”

Alas, it is true. I’ve come to rely on Lisa’s buje. Places seem livelier, less daunting and more welcoming when she’s there. She draws all the attention - I might as well be her beaded handbag and I’m fine with that. In unfamiliar situations, she’s a shield, handling the initial introductions and handing people off to me, like a track-and-field sprinter passing the baton. Without Lisa, in new situations I’m quiet. Quiet doesn’t mean shy - that’s a false assumption, I’m a natural watcher.

I’m skipping the mingling and speechifying - the boring stuff. Apparently, it’s all about us, we need to make a plan and do more, about everything. Interestingly, of the 8 organizers (the adults) five had literary first names. There was a Jude, a Tess, an Ophelia, a Clarissa and a Cordelia. Granted, they’re all fictional characters, but why name a kid after a protagonist who came to a tragic end - to seem well read?

As Leong and Sunny returned with our fifth round, Sunny pronounced “Tom Collins for President!” and we all raised our glasses. Just then Leong’s phone whooped with a text. It took her football minute to fish the contraption out of her itty-bitty disco-clutch, and then she fumbled it to the floor like an oiled baby.

It was a crute moment that, at first, struck us like women's-rights - but it had a sobering effect too. We agreed, in the silence of exchanged glances, that perhaps we were having too much fun, and we soon made our usual quiet and dignified exit.

My roommates Leong, Sophie, (Charles) and I were coming from a Yale sporting event. The sky looked like a ***** Swiffer-mop and the wind seemed to be ignoring the posted 20mph speed limit. It was a typical spring day in New Haven, overcast, 65°, with intermittent, drizzling rain. I was thinking it was a good day to be a duck.

We were looking for something to gnaw on and a beverage - of the alcoholic variety. We picked up some Mike’s hard cider (featured in our refrigerator now), which proves college students really do plan for the future.

It was about 4pm and the streets were puddled, slick-looking and empty. The lone passing car sounded like it was riding on a sponge. I was wearing a navy blue, short sleeve Polo dress, a matching Polo bucket hat (for the rain) and a slub knit hoodie that I ‘borrowed’ from Sunny forEVER (seriously, I ordered her a replacement from Amazon) and Roxy boat shoes.

On a side street, a “party-bike” sat parked, sad and abandoned in the rain. A party-bike is a tram fitted up as a bar that slowly drives noisy drunks around. The drunks sit around a “U” shaped bar, on small, backless stools welded onto the tram. Yes, an open-air bar on wheels. I can’t help thinking that a lawyer came up with the idea, because what could go wrong?

The first time I saw a “sightseeing” party-bike was on Beale Street, in Memphis Tennessee. Memphis is the Disneyland of barbeque and the blues. Every storefront for blocks is an open air blues bar, a barbeque place or souvenir shop (or all three at once). Party-bikes make sense there, because intoxication is like oxygen in Memphis. It's a party-bikes native environment. In New Haven, they seem cheap, excessive and opportunistic.

As we were walking, in the distance, we heard the wail of a saxophone and a beat so clear, that the sound seemed to linger and shimmer in the air, like a cartoon neon ‘Jazz’ sign. We instantly turned that way and discovered it was coming from a place called “Three Sheets” which was having open-mic tryouts for the house band.  

It’s a bar that serves food and there’s a ‘beer goddess’ painted on one wall. In Georgia, we’d call it a ‘fern bar.' We found a table in the darker back, out of the way, and settled in. A waitress quickly took our orders and brought us several IPA beers.

Near a platform stage, there were 6 or 8 musicians sitting around (with their instruments) waiting to take a turn forming a trio with the house drummer and bass who were laying down a constant beat. One would step in with a guitar and play for a hot minute, then a guy with the sax, another with a trumpet and yet another with a clarinet, it went on and on. They each had a solo, at some point, and it made me wonder why I don’t listen to more jazz.

Our afternoon of music was something Sophie had wished for. Earlier that morning, as we were leaving the residence, she’d said, “I wish there was a concert or something going on tonight - something musical,” and boom, we get this. Still, I don’t subscribe to the idea of holy intervention.

I hate it when I hear people say, “God never gives us more than we can handle.” I bristle, my head snaps in the direction of the speaker, I want to see who that dumb-*** is. My parents and sister are doctors, and believe me, people are dying every day in situations that are more than they can handle. Heart attacks, staph infections, gunshot wounds, covid, cancer - Uggg, sorry, I got off track and boiled-over there.

Anyway, we had some jazzy music and incredible Vietnamese pulled-pork sandwiches with fries and a smoky ketchup that I could have just drunk.
.
.
**I put (Charles) in brackets because, as our driver and escort, he’s usually there in the background when we’re not in the residence. But his presence is circumscribed, because he’s not there socially. Is it rude not to include him in every narrative? I don’t know - it's a habit.

You hope that university will answer all of life’s questions, but nope.

I don’t know, I.

There was a guy who’d been hanging around outside our residence lately. Too consistently. At first, I thought he was someone’s friend but he’s always alone. He wasn’t doing anything or bothering my roommates, but that asymmetry set off my alarms.

He looked at me once (which I suppose isn’t a crime), I think, it was quick - a blink of sharp curiosity. I mentioned it to Charles who took his picture. The next morning he said the guy’s a legit student who has no criminal record, so maybe I’m all wrong.

Every girl’s encountered a creep or two before. They’re seemingly everywhere, as if mandated by law, like auto insurance. Most girls develop a sixth sense, a creep-dar. Nowadays, creeps have a new name, “incel” ("involuntary celibate") and they’re a recognized, online subculture. Next, they’ll have a coat of arms proclaiming, “We Would if We Could.” It’s as if awkwardness, a normal human foible, has been distilled into something dangerous.

Although the campus looks like a garden or a perfectly manicured ‘stepford’ park, we joke that it’s really a locked-down, patrolled, surveilled compound, with guards, cameras and card-key access to everything. Which, I suppose, is all to the good.

Our creeper wasn’t there Friday, and he wasn’t there today, so maybe he was nothing.

I don’t know, 2.

I was in Sunny’s room. We were going shopping in a few. There was a little pink book on her bed - a diary!! I’d never seen it before and it was open, about three-quarters of the way. She too-casually moved to scoop it up, like the neglected book of a sorcerer.

My GOSSIP-dar Alerted like a class bell. “Hmm” I hummed, head-tilted, then I laughingly lunged for the book.
Sunny’s eyes went wide for 3-billionths of a second and she snapped it up with the speed of a striking cobra, “That’s MINE” she said, rigid with seriousness.
“What’s going ON?!” I asked, but she shoved it into her night table.
Another mystery!
‘Sleeping dogs,’ I thought to myself.

I’ve been cutting Peter’s hair for a year. When covid lockdown occurred, I learned to cut my brother’s hair - and yes, he still has two ears. When I first met Peter, he had a great thick tangle of unkempt black and, in certain light, blue hair. It was **** as hell, in a lost puppy way.

Then, one Saturday morning last year, as summer began to settle in, he buzz cut it - out of the blue - you might say. When he showed up that morning for breakfast with Lisa and I (we were at Stillman), Lisa saw him first and turned just in time to see me, see him. She saw my squint as the sign of trouble it was.

Lisa’s yoda. “Guys,” she said simply.
How can I put this: Eeuuwww, creepy. Peter’s tall and lanky, like descriptions I’ve read of a young Abraham Lincoln, although unlike that great man, Peter’s rather handsome - with hair.

If the stubble were red, I could say he looked exactly like a matchstick, but with his black hair against his bone-white head, he looked more like an escaped convict.

When he got to our table he rubbed his hand over the ruin of his lost hair, and grinning, said, “How’d you like it?”
“Wow,” Lisa said, recusing herself noncommittedly.
I looked up from my phone, “We need to get you a HAT,” I said softly.
“Why?” he said, his grin dimming by a good 50%.

“Because,” I said, summoning all of my notable tact, “you aren’t going to hang around ME looking like Forrest Gump.” I’d just looked up hat stores and found one five blocks away, DelMonico Hatter, on Elm street. They even had the hat I was looking for in stock.
“What?” He started defensively.
“Get something to go.” I said, standing up and starting to gather up my things.
Peter, swimming like he usually does, got an egg & sausage biscuit and a cup of coffee to go.
As the three of us were walking, I asked Peter, “You like 'Breaking Bad', ya?”
“Sure,” he said, with a mouth half-full of biscuit.
“We’re getting you a heisenberg” I said, grinning. “or two.”

“No, I don’t know,” he said, slowing his walk. I could tell he was worried about the money. Peter and I had only been seeing each other casually at that point - we’d never even kissed - but I knew he lived on a small stipend, he received monthly, while completing his doctorate.

“Look,” I said, coming to a stop. We all came to a stop. “I’m flush, this is MY treat and I don’t want you to worry about it.” When he still looked hesitant, I said, exaggeratedly, as I started to walk again, “Don’t worry, you won’t owe me any ****** favors.”
“Aww, ****,” he said with a grin.
“She does this,” Lisa whispered to him, too loudly.

Eventually, we found him two Heisenberg hats for around $200. One, for summer day wear, a light beige Bailey Carver Straw Porkpie and the other, for nightwear, a Roche, DelMonico Palma Felt Pork Pie - just like Walter White’s. He looked quite the bengali menace.

Of course, his hair grew back in a few months, but he kept wearing the hats.  And now I cut his hair - to prevent any sudden, k-mart inspirations.

Lisa and I went to a reception, yesterday evening, for students who’d landed summer fellowships at a particular hospital in Boston. (Yeah us!) It wasn’t formal, so I wore a crimson cropped sweater, a beige circle skirt (with pockets!) and beige Sarto soft-leather ballet flats.

I’ve disparate feelings in these situations. I was excited - this was a goal I needed to achieve - that next notch - and my mom might even smile.

At the same time, I felt like an imposter. ‘If these people knew the trouble I’m having with physics this year,’ I thought, and ‘I know my sister could do this - and my brother - but can I?’

I try not to let my nervousness show, because the stories you tell yourself can hold you back.

The reception was small, there were only four students, their mentors and a few hospital and Yale people. As we signed in, we got name tags and tote bags with the hospital logo containing fellowship info. There were picture posters of the hospital all around and an intro video looping on a large screen TV. They took some snaps.

Several tables along one wall had coffee, sodas, water bottles and finger snacks - which I guess you’d call canapes - and melon ***** of all colors. The centerpiece though, was a big silver, smoked salmon with a lemon stuck in its mouth and a wreath of parsley about its neck - all on a bed of lettuce, surrounded by various crackers and French bread rolls.

I was working my way along the tables, because there were honeydew melon-***** and they’re a personal weakness. Honeydews aren’t in season now, so I was full-on, honeydew foraging. I’m sure I looked like a starving homeless girl who’d somehow gotten in and was trying to eat for the week.

A slim, attractive, black lady in a very stylish dark-gray beaded jacket & sheath dress, had stopped as if transfixed, staring solemnly at the salmon. As I drew next to her, my plate half full of honeydew *****, she said, “It’s a fitting memorial.” That hit me as so funny - I laughed embarrassingly - spitting half a melon ball under the table. She started laughing too - we were like two sillies at church. Her sad face, the way she’d said it - you had to be there.

After a few minutes, the hospital administrator gave a little general welcome, ending it with, “Now it’s time to meet your mentors.” The fish lady turned out to be my mentor. She was still standing next to me - she turned, offered her hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Rebecca.”

Her voice made those simple words seem warm and inviting. She looks to be in her early fifties (but I’m a bad judge of age), her short black hair was peppered with gray and white like she had just come in from the snow. We became instant old friends, cracking each other up.

Dr. Rebecca’s (again, I’m not doxing anyone) specialty is neurological surgery. She’s a Baltimore girl - born and raised - who attended Johns Hopkins from bachelors through medical school. Of course, I mentioned that both my siblings went to Johns at some point - Brice being a sophomore in med school there now.

Besides four years of medical school, Rebecca completed seven years of neurological surgery residency (yummy). “A doctor never really finishes school,” she said, “things constantly change and there are new specialties to master,” but I knew this from my parents.

“The plan is for you to shadow me this summer,” she confirmed, “and gain some clinical experience.” I nodded enthusiastically, saying, “Yes mam.” We talked for about thirty minutes and, as we parted, she gifted me a copy of ‘Skandalaki’s Surgical Anatomy.’

“If you want to be a surgeon, you’ll need to know anatomy better than God.” She’d said. “So start now. I made some notes for you in the index - we’re going to lean into this,” she finished, tapping the book, and giving me a wink.

I was walking on air as Lisa and I made our way back to the residence.
It’s going to be the BEST summer.

The fire is far away
Not far enough to not see the flames
But far enough to not be afraid
Far enough to evacuate
Far enough to see the damage
But not experience the damage
Its getting warmer
But no need to panic
I live here
I watch the fire everyday
It inches closer but still I stay
I can’t leave yet
I have to much going for me here
I can’t leave yet
My friends haven’t left yet
I can’t leave yet
It’s not my time
It will be soon
And then I will leave
The fire won’t reach me
Hopefully
I want to leave
I hope it all burns down
And I get to watch and laugh

Darkness has pressed up against our lattice windows. Classes start again in the morning. I’m being reabsorbed by college life. I’m a planner. I’ve been going over my syllabuses, repacking my bookbag, charging my power banks, checking and rechecking the assignments due tomorrow. After watching me prep for hours, Peter said, “You’re not going to the MOON.”

Peter asked me last Friday, “Are you excited for Monday? (I’ll find out if I get my fellowship.)
“I’m more excited about tonight,” I said, “I like going out on the town.”
“Wow,” he said, “you’re so different - not like the other girls at all.”
“No!” I said, laughing, “We’re stuck in a rut, we only go to one or two places, ever - if we go out at all. When people come to New Haven, I need places to take them - places besides pizza. At home, in Athens (Ga), I know twenty places - this is RESEARCH.” I assured him.

Peter settled back into his doctorate-fraternity-house yesterday. Tonight (Sunday), there’s music in the suite, the crazy noises of people and the comfort of returned friends. All the roommates are back, greeted with hugs and kisses, as they dragged in their luggage.

Lisa arrived with dinner, for 10, from Dominick's, in Manhattan. Spaghetti, salads, rolls, extra sauce - in six, small, suitcase-sized insulated bags. It was a logistical marvel. It’s only 90 minutes from Manhattan to the residence - we didn’t need to rewarm anything. “I KNOW we could have just eaten in the dining hall,” she said, shrugging, “call it zany - one last hurrah.”

Everyone seemed happy to be back. There were travel stories, questions, and laughter. Oh, and Zeppole, little powdered sugar custard desserts that seemed the worst for travel. Everyone seemed to have an eye on the clock though. By 11pm the suite was quiet. Très unusual.

The wheel of fortune has spun our way,
we’re on Spring-break for 8 more days!

The transition to leisure was as smooth as oil,
without classes, he’s just a guy and I’m his girl.

For three weeks we’ll have had the suite to ourselves,
it has all the amenities, it’s like a hotel.

We’ve never been together, alone, for so long before,
it’s so deliciously heterodox, it’s like a reward.

Peter (my BF) observed, “This will be a reality check.”
Yeah, he’s a hopeless romantic.
“Sorry sir,” I said, “It's my policy not to cash reality checks.”

It’s Sunday morning and we’re in the new, exciting, daylight savings time.
Peter and I are sitting next to each other on the big, red, corduroy couch in my suite’s common room.

All of my roommates are gone so we’re free to relax in our PJs. We’re quietly heads-down on our devices. When, suddenly, I realized, as I do every 10 minutes or so, that it’s Spring Break!

I side-eyed Peter who was reading something. Probably some interstellar statistical report whose roots were calculated in base 7. I slowly, so as not to divulge that anything was happening, lowered my iPad and set it aside.

Then I slowly, very slowly, begin invading his space - he doesn’t notice at first but I lean on him gradually harder and heavier. He looked at me, confused, but now I’m crawling onto his lap - rolling onto my back. He moves his laptop - holding it up and away with one hand.

“EXCUSE me,” I say, “I beg your pardon, couldn’t be helped.” I repeat about three times as I roll a complete 360° in his lap with glacial, disruptive slowness - making sure to elbow him gently in places and cover his face with hair.

As I climb off him, I jump up and start singing and dancing to this song I made up (with maximum arm flail):

K k k k King kong song
I’m sing the king kong song
I’m dancing to the king kong song
Feel free to sing along.

I point at him and sing, “I’m talking to YOU!”

K k k k King kong song
You’re listening to the king kong song
Feel free to sing along
To the K k k King kong song!

I stop, striking a pose like someone on a Broadway stage waiting for applause.

“YOU,” he says, are a complete NUT.” But he’s smiling, broadly, as I jump onto his lap and begin smothering him with kisses.